Ahrefs vs Moz: Which SEO Tool Should You Pay For?

Choose Ahrefs if your job is competitor and backlink research and you can spend $129 a month or more. Choose Moz Pro if you want a cheaper full plan ($99 against $129), a free trial, more AI prompt tracking at entry level, or Moz Local for listings in the US, UK or Canada. Both update tracked rankings weekly, so neither wins on that. Every price and limit below comes from the vendors' own pages, as of October 2026.

That is the short version of the Ahrefs vs Moz decision. The longer version matters because the two tools meter usage in different ways, and several pages ranking for this comparison repeat claims the vendors themselves contradict, such as Moz updating ranks daily. We checked each claim against the source.

#The verdict: who should pick which

Both tools cover keywords, backlinks, rank tracking and site audits. They differ in how much of each you get for the money, and in a few areas only one covers well.

Pick Ahrefs if:

• Most of your week is spent in competitor research: who links to them, what pages earn their traffic, which keywords they rank for.
• You need a large tracked keyword list on one plan. Lite tracks 750 keywords against Moz Standard's 300.
• You work across many sites you own. Ahrefs lets you add unlimited verified projects on every paid plan.
• You can live without a trial. Ahrefs offers none and says it does not issue refunds in general.

Pick Moz Pro if:

• Budget is the constraint. Moz Standard costs $99 a month against $129 for Ahrefs Lite.
• You want to try before paying. Moz runs a 7-day free trial of its Medium plan.
• You report on AI visibility. Moz Standard tracks 150 prompts across four AI models; Ahrefs Lite tracks 5.
• You manage business listings for physical locations in the US, UK or Canada, where Moz Local works.

Use neither (yet) if you run one small site and have never opened Google Search Console. The free tiers covered at the end of this guide will teach you what you need before you pay for anything. If you are weighing other tools too, our roundups of Ahrefs alternatives and Moz alternatives cover Semrush, SE Ranking, Majestic and cheaper single-job tools.

#Ahrefs vs Moz at a glance (October 2026)

The table compares the plans most buyers actually choose between: Ahrefs Lite and Moz Pro Standard, with each vendor's cheaper door noted. Every cell comes from Ahrefs' pricing page or Moz Pro's pricing page and their linked product pages, opened on 9 October 2026. All prices are in US dollars, monthly billing, before tax.

One warning: the index and keyword rows are the vendors' own descriptions, and they do not measure the same things. We explain why below.

#What the entry price actually buys

Credits versus query quotas

Ahrefs Lite gives each user 1,000 credits a month. Credits are spent when you open reports and request data in the core research tools. Lite also caps each report at 2,500 rows. From Standard upward, credits are unlimited, so heavy researchers should price Standard, not Lite.

Moz meters each tool separately. Standard includes 150 keyword queries a month, 5,000 backlink queries with up to 10,000 results each, and 200 Rank Checker lookups a day. The keyword allowance is the tightest. Moz sells an extra 10,000 keyword queries for $10 a month, so Standard plus that add-on costs $109, still well under Ahrefs Lite.

On Ahrefs Lite, one busy research day can burn a large share of the month's credits across every tool. On Moz Standard, you can exhaust keyword research while backlink queries sit unused. Check the allowance for the tool you would open most.

Seats and teams

For two people, the arithmetic changes order:

• Ahrefs Lite with one extra user: $129 + $40 = $169 a month.
• Moz Standard with one extra seat: $99 + $49 = $148 a month.
• Moz Medium, which includes two users: $179 a month, with 1,500 tracked keywords and 5,000 keyword queries.

Lite allows only two extra users in total. A team of four has to move to Ahrefs Standard at $249 plus $60 per added user.

Billing, trials and refunds

Ahrefs is blunt on its pricing page: "We never run discounts." It points website owners to Ahrefs Free instead of a trial. Refunds are not issued in general; for monthly plans you can ask if you have not used the service. If you switch on pay-as-you-go credits, Ahrefs charges automatically when you go over your limits, so leave that off until you know your usage.

Moz's trial checkout shows the Medium plan at no charge today, then $179 plus applicable taxes after 7 days. Set a reminder. Moz says you can cancel or change plans at any time with no questions asked. Its yearly price for Standard is shown as $950 billed for your first year, so check the renewal price before you commit to a year.

#Index and keyword claims, as each vendor states them

Much of the advice ranking for this comparison says Ahrefs has the larger link index. The vendors' own pages do not settle that, because they count different things.

Ahrefs' big data page describes "the world's largest index of live backlinks, updated with fresh data every 15–30 minutes," and lists 35.0 trillion records of external backlink history, 493.9 billion pages in its index and 285.7 million domains after vetting. Moz's Link Explorer page lists 45.5 trillion links, 8.7 trillion URLs and 1 billion domains.

Read literally, Moz states the larger link number. But "external backlinks history" and "links" are not defined the same way, and "domains post-vetting" implies Ahrefs filtered its count while Moz's figure carries no such qualifier.

The keyword figures have the same problem. Ahrefs states a keyword index of 28.7 billion, with 2.7 billion keywords for the United States, 1.4 billion for the United Kingdom and 1.4 billion for India. Moz says Keyword Explorer features over 1.25 billion keyword suggestions. A suggestion pool and a total index are different measures. Still, the gap is wide enough that we would expect Ahrefs to return more long-tail ideas, especially for India or the UK. Verify that on your own seed terms.

We did not use third-party "accuracy studies" here. We could not find an original, methodology-published head-to-head we would stand behind, and the numbers that matter are the ones for your site. The test at the end of this guide shows how to check them.

#Domain Rating vs Domain Authority, briefly

Each tool's headline score answers a slightly different question. Moz defines Domain Authority as a 1 to 100 score that "predicts how likely a website is to rank" compared with competitors, and says plainly that it is not a Google ranking factor. Ahrefs defines Domain Rating as the strength of a site's backlink profile compared with the others in its database, on a 100-point scale.

A DA of 40 and a DR of 40 are not the same thing, and Google uses neither. If a client insists on one score, buy the tool that produces it. We cover the two metrics in depth in Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR, and how each tool's keyword difficulty score works in what is keyword difficulty.

#Rank tracking: both are weekly

Several comparisons claim Moz tracks rankings daily. Moz's own help documentation says its Rankings tool tracks keywords "nationally or locally" with weekly updates. Ahrefs' pricing table lists Rank Tracker update frequency as weekly on Lite, Standard, Advanced and Enterprise.

The differences are in volume and granularity:

• Ahrefs Lite tracks 750 keywords, across more than 190 locations, from country down to city and ZIP code, on mobile and desktop.
• Moz Standard tracks 300 keywords across three campaigns. A Moz campaign covers your site plus three competitors. Moz adds 200 Rank Checker lookups a day for one-off checks between weekly updates.

If you need daily movement, for example during a site migration, neither entry plan provides it. A tool sold on daily tracking will serve that job better, and our Ahrefs alternatives roundup lists entry plans by update frequency. For your own site, Search Console's Performance report already shows the average position of your pages at no cost.

#Local SEO: Moz Local and Ahrefs' GBP Monitor

Moz Local is sold separately from Moz Pro, per location. The Lite tier costs $20 a month, or $199 billed yearly, and covers getting listed across directories, review alerts and local presence tracking. Higher tiers at $30 and $40 a month add review responses, competitor tracking and social posting. Moz says it "currently supports the purchased management of US, UK, and Canadian business listings."

Ahrefs has no listings distribution product. What it has, included in its plans and labelled beta, is GBP Monitor: alerts when anyone (including Google) edits your Google Business Profile, one-click rejection or restore of those edits, and bulk edits to hours and categories across several profiles. It also reports calls, direction requests and website clicks per location.

So the choice depends on the problem:

• A UK dental practice or a US plumber with inconsistent listings across directories: Moz Local does the job Ahrefs does not.
• A chain whose Google profiles keep changing without its approval: Ahrefs' GBP Monitor is built for that.
• A business in India: Moz Local does not cover Indian listings, so the deciding factor is the rest of the toolkit. Google Business Profile itself is free to manage.

Our local SEO guide for UK businesses covers the work around listings, reviews and service-area pages.

#AI search tracking

Both vendors now sell visibility in AI answers, and the entry plans are far apart.

Moz Standard includes 150 tracked prompts across four models (GPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Perplexity), refreshed weekly, plus three AI visibility dashboards and two AI content briefs a month. Ahrefs Lite includes 5 tracked AI prompts. Ahrefs sells its full Brand Radar AI product from $199 a month, and custom prompt packages from $50 a month.

If a client asks "do we show up in ChatGPT?", Moz Standard answers that for more prompts out of the box. Ahrefs' Brand Radar, built on what Ahrefs describes as more than 468 million organic prompts, is a bigger research product but costs extra.

#Who each tool suits

The plan audiences in quotes are Ahrefs' own labels.

Solo site owner or blogger. Start with the free tiers. If you outgrow them, Moz Starter at $49 is the cheaper paid step for a single site, and Ahrefs Starter at $29 is cheaper still if your main need is keyword research and a look at competitors. Ahrefs describes Lite as "essential data for small businesses and personal projects," but $129 is a lot for one hobby site.

Freelancer or small agency. Ahrefs calls its Standard plan "perfect for freelance SEOs and marketing consultants," and the unlimited credits are the reason: client research does not fit neatly into 1,000 credits. If budget rules that out, Moz Medium at $179 includes two users and ten campaigns.

Local business. Moz fits where you need directory listings and review management in the three countries Moz Local covers. Buying Ahrefs Lite only for GBP Monitor would be expensive.

In-house marketing team. Ahrefs pitches Advanced at $449 to "lean in-house marketing teams," with five years of history and 5,000 tracked keywords. Teams that report on AI visibility to leadership should price Moz Medium or Large alongside it, because Moz includes far more tracked prompts per dollar.

US, UK and India: what you will be billed

Both pricing pages list US dollars. Moz's checkout adds "applicable taxes" on top of the list price. Ahrefs accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express and UnionPay, with wire transfer only for Enterprise. Neither page showed a price in pounds or rupees when we checked.

For UK buyers, expect tax to be added at checkout and the card charge to follow the exchange rate. For Indian buyers, the card will be charged in dollars, so check your bank's foreign-currency fee before choosing annual billing, where a single large charge makes the fee more noticeable. Indian startups comparing the wider market can see our SEO tools for startups in India roundup.

#What neither tool does

• They do not show your real clicks. Their traffic and ranking figures for a site come from their own crawling and keyword databases, not from Google. Your actual queries, clicks and impressions are in Google Search Console, which is free.
• They do not see every link Google sees. Each has its own crawler and its own index. Google's own Links report is also only "a sample," with tables limited to 1,000 rows, so no single source is complete.
• They do not build links. Both find opportunities, such as Ahrefs' broken backlinks report (Standard and up) or Moz's Link Intersect, which compares up to five sites. The outreach is still yours.
• They do not offer daily rank updates on the plans listed. Both are weekly.
• They do not write or publish content for you. Both now sell AI content tools, but turning research into published pages is a separate job.

#Test both before you pay

You can compare the two tools on your own site for free in about an hour. How well each covers your niche and country matters more than any headline number.

1. Export your ground truth. In Google Search Console, open Links, then "Top linking sites," and export the list. Note the total number of linking sites.
2. Set up Ahrefs Free. Ahrefs Free (formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools) is free with no card and no expiry. Verify your site, then open Site Explorer and note referring domains. The free tier shows up to 1,000 backlinks and keywords at once, which is plenty for a small site.
3. Create a free Moz account. Link Explorer gives 10 free queries a month. Run your domain and note linking domains, plus Moz's lists of recently discovered and lost domains.
4. Compare the three lists. Which tool found more of the domains that Search Console lists? Which found real sites that Search Console does not show? Note any obvious spam each tool includes.
5. Run three keyword seeds in each. Use terms your customers actually type, in your country. Ahrefs Free does not include Keywords Explorer, so use Moz's free Keyword Explorer and Ahrefs' free toolbar on a live results page, or spend the $29 on one month of Ahrefs Starter if keyword research is the deciding factor.

If one tool clearly sees more of your niche, that settles most of the decision. If they are close, go back to the verdict at the top and let price, seats and local needs decide.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, Semrush, Moz or Ahrefs?

It depends on the job. Ahrefs suits heavy competitor and backlink research, Moz suits smaller budgets, AI prompt tracking at entry level and US, UK or Canadian listings. Semrush is the third all-in-one option, and its pricing page lists keywords tracked daily (500 on the entry SEO plan); our Semrush alternatives roundup compares it with the rest.

Is Moz cheaper than Ahrefs?

On the main plans, yes. Moz Standard is $99 a month against $129 for Ahrefs Lite. At the very bottom it flips: Ahrefs Starter is $29 and Moz Starter is $49. For two users, Moz Standard with a seat costs $148 against $169 for Ahrefs Lite with one.

Does Ahrefs have a free trial?

No. Ahrefs says it never runs discounts and offers Ahrefs Free instead, which gives limited, permanent access to Site Explorer and Site Audit for sites you verify. Moz offers a 7-day free trial of its Medium plan, which then bills $179 a month plus tax.

Is Moz Domain Authority the same as Ahrefs Domain Rating?

No. Both run from 0 or 1 to 100, but DA predicts how likely a site is to rank against competitors, while DR measures the strength of a site's backlink profile against others in Ahrefs' database. The same site usually scores differently in each, and Google uses neither.

Who are Ahrefs' main competitors?

The all-in-one tools Semrush, Moz Pro and SE Ranking compete most directly. Specialists compete on single jobs: Majestic for backlinks, Mangools for budget keyword research and Screaming Frog for technical audits. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools cover your own site for free.

Can I use Ahrefs and Moz together?

Yes, on the free tiers. Use Ahrefs Free for your own site's audit and backlinks, and Moz's free Link Explorer queries and MozBar for quick competitor checks. Paying for both rarely makes sense for a small team, because the core tools overlap.